Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online Review:Best MMO Shooter Since PlanetSide 2

Sorry I haven't made many posts as of late, but I was caught up in the new game i'm playing and just like any new game I get I marathon the shit out of it. This time it was about 2 days of nonstop play  you know how intense of a gamer you are if your uncle is proud that you got in the shower.

It's been a really slow month for gaming (I plan to start playing some games I miss this year but this happened earlier) so I picked up a couple MMOs since it's the only my computer can handle right now since I haven't got my gaming PC together yet (work in progress).I really liked PlanetSide 2  but it wasn't working out with my PC they didn't really get even decent framerates on medium (20) so I dropped it and moved on to some other shooters which eventually led me to Ghost Recon through my friend's (...Acquaintance?) blog.

And what will your play style be sir?

From the beginning you are treated to 3 classes to choose from without much info if you hadn't watched or read anything about the game beforehand.
You have your classic rusher,sniper, and the inbetween, I would say that the class system doesn't take any risks but after a few games you can customize your gun so much that you can be whatever you want for every class.
So what are you the point of the classes than? One of my favorite features in Ghost which is the special ability that each class gets at level two, two for each class. These abilities are represented as high tech weaponry, what the original Ghost Recon: Future Soldiers was all about.
Whether it's Recon's oracle revealing the locations of nearby enemies or Specialist's Aegis shield that covers them and their allies as they rush the opponent every single ability plays a role in the match and a good mix of all those abilities leads to a rock-solid team.

A Tactical Joy 

Ghost is still in open-beta so there is always the chance that they will add deathmatch modes. But if a call of duty fanboy (you all know at least one) told me he was going to play this game I would laugh until my heart stops than look up at him "Oh you're serious?". This game is not about getting kills and racking up your streak (maybe i'm just mad because I only ever got one and it was only a 2 kills?) there is either one or many points that you have to get ahold of to win the match and then you have to stop the opposing team from stealing it. 

Initially I was turned off by their not being a deathmatch mode but when I played my first match all of those doubts disappeared in a blink of an eye. The mixture of different players and special abilities always kept you on your toes you didn't know if an assault was coming to rush your ass off or am you were going to be one-shotted by a sniper as you were running for cover from a special ability that damages your equipment and makes sparks fly from your helmet (by the way it's hard to do pretty much of anything with electricity IN your head ).

Ghostly Fun

Overall, Ghost is a amazing game to play when you got a few hours to kill but it comes with it's problem like anything else. texture pop in is a regular occurrence that happens almost everytime you walk around a corner (Have you ever tried to flank someone only to run directly into a wall that literally came out of nowhere then find yourself at a dead end?).
After a few games you can get enough money to upgrade your gun but after that it's hard to get that amount of money again unless you cough up some real cash. This also connects with how long it takes to find matches sometimes you have to wait 15 minutes and if it does take that long you're probably thrown into an ongoing game because a guy quit. They may also have to make the skill range larger with you confronting the guys who can one-shot you while you five-shot them.

I give Ghost Recon Online a 8.5/10 with a recommendation that you go and download it right now from the link below (not on steam yet) it's free to play and that's a damn good deal for something as amazing as this game.

If you enjoyed the review come check out my blog colemantimes.blogspot.com
You can check out my friend's blog for a list of MMOs you can play but he also does PC builds for specific things he just made a MMO build I believe you can play any MMO on max with good FPS on that build http://nglo-pcbuilds.weebly.com/
Ghost Recon Official Site

Xbox's Quest For Games

When I first got into gaming it was through anime (look it up) and it's very closely related genre RPG so I played them almost religiously shunning any other genre like shooters and action. But that kinda did not work out when I got my xbox 360 coming from my wii. I had discovered that the Xbox had a very thin category of RPGs especially my favorite franchise period, Kingdom Hearts which was one of the many PS3 exclusives.

The first game was the very FIRST game I played. Ever. So I spend the latter part of the generation growing accustomed to adventure games trying to get my weekly gaming fix. I'm happy now because playing other genres I truly grew to love gaming replacing anime as my hobby. 

So I was happy when I heard that Microsoft worked out a deal with Square Enix to get Kingdom Hearts 3 on Xbox One.

Even though I plan getting the PS4 as my main console (I'm still getting the xbox one for the exclusives) i'm happy that Microsoft truly learned from their mistakes last generation were to be honest the 360 was for shooter fans (Which I was not) and not much else excluding the occasional action-adventure. 

The Xbox is going through whatever means to get exclusives or at least old PS3 exclusives as cross-platforms appealing to a larger audience.

Like I had expected, the first year of the new consoles was going to turn into a battlefield for the gaming community now the ball's in Sony's court with their Playstation Now.

What do you think about Microsoft's new approach to games? or do you think Playstation will still reign supreme?

let me know down below in the comments section and if you enjoyed the article come check out my blog for my thoughts on events in the gaming world plus the occasional game/tech review colemantimes.blogspot.com

Alienware Steambox Non-Upgradable: Dell's Gamble

So most PC gamers are aware of the upcoming steam boxes and most of those most is fascinated with Alienware's,because a certain youtube gaming channel showed their interest in it even without knowing any of the specs. Well i'm very interested in it as well not because of the specs though because of the new information surrounding it.

Dell is known for their laptop entries in the gaming PC market so they have some leverage to play around with since we all know their is a very devoted group of people (as with other big companies) that will buy their steambox no matter what. So they took a leap of fate into the Steamboxes target market the console players,similar to the steam controller's recent redesign (which I, not like a lot of others, am not happy about). 

PC gaming is always evolving that's why it's ahead consoles right now (notice how I worded that) and the basis of that evolving is the sheer amount of customization that one can have on their PC and they will eventually have to upgrade no matter what. 

well like I mentioned in my earlier article on the "Single Player" this new generation is bringing brand new innovation out of companies (no matter what anyone say yes PC also has generations). 

Ok ok i'll get to the point  alienware's steambox is un-upgradeable making more like a console following what my dear friend (I wish) Rich from ReviewTechUsa said if they really wanted console players they shouldn't be making all these models of steamboxes with these  ridiculous prices.

They should just make one base model that every single game made for Steam OS and even ported to it can be me played on high settings. I think what PC gamer nerds like me should not be mad about this that you wont be able to max out all these games with 100+ FPS but just be glad that we're not getting the same type of thing we already have.

This is for people who want to get into pc gaming but either says A it's too expensive I genuinely do not believe that alienwares prices will be low their known for sometimes overpricing things but the iBuyPower and CyberPC steamboxes are both 500$ the same prices as the xbox one which they probably already have. 

This will stop non-PCers from being confused about all these different parts that they don't even know how to compare to find out which is better. 

How do you guys feel about this one? Do you think Alienware is killing their fanbase? or do you think that this is a good step forward to getting steamboxes in living rooms alongside the PS4 and Xbox?
UPDATE: Even though everything in this article still stands alienware will actually allow  upgrades but still I think all games should be able to work the base hardware console gamers won't want to upgrade and if there's a new one every year why would they?

Check out my personal blog for more info on steamboxes and much more

New MMORPG:Aura Kingdom Beta Thoughts

I love RPGs and I used to play them exclusively but I had an xbox 360 which as you might already know has a very thin category of RPGs and I had a cheap computer so I couldn't play any full fledged PC games on it,besides it did not have the classic series like Tales either. 

So my next option was MMORPGs after searching for a while (3 minutes) I found Eden Eternal and loved it playing for hours on end every day and when the "Reawakening" came out I came back to it and started to grind once again as many of us MMORPG players do.

This time I started to play a game made by the makers of Eden Eternal and redownloaded Aeria Games on my new computer just to play it. Right off the bat you are introduced to a cinematic scene not knowing much at all. You battle several boss-looking monsters with AIs acting as a party making this seem like an actual dungeon raid. The healer in your party makes it so that you can't die so this is basically a tutorial for you to try some things out and get used to the controls. 

After some scenes I rather not mention (It's a decent story considering that there's rarely any story at all in MMORPGs so I rather not spoil you) you wake up in your small fishing town thinking that everything that you just saw is a dream (but is actual a foretelling of later game events THEORY). So you are then introduced to the standard MMO fetch quests  which is not at all but there's SO MUCH story in this game if you don't stray away from the quests every once in awhile you get a cutscene every 10 minutes. 

Don't blame yourself if you end up skipping a few conversations I just don't recommend skipping everything thoughtless because like I said it has a strong story integrated in the gameplay.

And the gameplay is well uh.....decent the classes have good variety but some are just copypasted classes from other games with new name and appearance I thought it would be fun to be a gunslinger but it's basically an archer but less fun then the one from Eden. there's some good skills as well but you're only treated to a few at the beginning and since I only just started I don't if it gets better but I definitely don't want to be rocking level 1 skills in a level 40 dungeon and the same exact things goes for the weapons. 


But a portion of the combat problems can be compensated when you get your chosen Eidolon  a guardian spirit that helps you in combat some games like Dragon Prophet also try this but I think this is the best integration since Pokemon. You can level them up ask them questions and have a conversation you can level them up into bigger and badder spirits eventually and there really valuable in boss battles. 

Overall Aura Kingdom is as you expect an unfinished product though there's not many bugs I think they should have kept this one in closed beta for a little bit longer 

What do you guys think of this one and will you give it a try? And if you already have what do you think of the game and do you disagree with anything I've said?

Watchdogs: the Next-Gen GTA With a Twist

Even though it was released awhile ago I saw actual gameplay of WatchDogs a few minutes ago. And let me just say i'm impressed in every aspect of the word.
You spend the video free roaming not just to not give away much about the game's story but also to let the world see how well-made the entire world is.
The main appeal of this game is the ability to interact with the technology of the city itself. In the not so distant future of Chicago (My hometown! :D) to prevent crime and generally better the city an advanced operating system was put in place (CTOS) and if someone was able to enter the system itself they would possess a truly terrible power,control of the entire city. And it's truly what makes this game fun every single piece of world is interactive through the CTOS you can hack phones,security camera,bank accounts and even see a person's entire background just by glancing at them.
The story doesn't end there though, there's so much more. The shooting and driving mechanics are superb and the cars worthy of a rockstar, you get to drive really brought me back to GTA of which I think WatchDogs is a bigger and badder version of I honestly expected it to completely rip off GTA but there's so much more besides that game, to be explored in the open world genre which is only just getting more popularity which comes with more titles to be made within it.
And then the interactivity is taken to a whole new level, the CTOS is essentially a crime-prevention service it marks potential victims and potential criminals in the gameplay you follow a women who is an expected victim and so have it, as she walked down an alley she was attacked by her ex-boyfriend and was about to be killed or at the least beaten to a pulp. We intervened and entered a chase sequence which hasn't been my favorite  mechanic in most games notably Assassin's Creed but it actually looks much more fleshed out in WatchDogs which also applied to the car chase scene directly after so.
Ok to be honest I kinda squealed when I saw a gun shop riding up on the corner (don't judge) but this showed off the moral system implicated in this game. After surfing through a rather extensive list of guns (things to look forward to) a news show came on the tv in the gunshop stating that you were the number 1  suspect in a crime which the owner reacted to by pushing a silent alarm. But nothing gets pass us right?
Ok fine that has nothing to do with the moral aspect but the gist of that is how you handle events such as crime prevention effects how the people see you a true vigilante or a reckless criminal and it WILL impact the story in one way or another.
And perhaps the most interesting thing I've seen today represented exactly what my last article was about the single player and multiplayer were molted together. You or any other person for that matter can enter a single player without the player even being aware and you can continue to hack the player's phone to get a portion of the information they got during their game. And that begins the fun, the player is now aware of your presence and will be hunting you down while you try to stay alive but stay close enough so that the connection is not broken and the hack completes.

All in all WatchDogs will truly be something for when it releases and will definitely dominate the market now I have to go spend the rest of my days scanning the internet for every tidbit about WatchDogs
But what did you think about all this info and are you going to be checking out watch dogs yourself? tell me down in the comment section below and see you next time

Is Single Player Still Necessary?

Titanfall is having a tough time with marketing since it has no single player now this raises a question in my mind that the guys over on gamespot's podcast "GamePlay" had an interesting conversation about.
With the surge of Multiplayer that Call of Duty brought us more and more shooters are following the trend of focusing on Multiplayer and in some cases *cough* Destiny *cough* they attempt to merge single and multiplayer or focus solely on multiplayer and have shitty campaigns in the case of Call of Duty and Battlefield, the two most popular shooters. So we should have seen the moment someone was brave enough to break this meaningless cycle and do their own thing. I hope they continue to break cycles with next-gen and become something completely new.The video game future's looking bright that's a definite.

The Evolution Of Mobile Gaming

Alot of stuff to talk about since CES ended yesterday while searching for a topic that hasn't already been used and abused by almost every tech or game content creator on the internet I wanted to cover something that is a bit more broad and implied rather than stated.
Mobile gaming is becoming much more than what it is right now. Phones has evolved so much in such a little time that we couldn't have imagined what our phones does for us right now, 30 years ago.
I always thought mobile will take over sooner or later it's just wasn't powerful enough at the time but it would be. both AMD and Nvidia has created these powerful mobile processors that will be able to keep with consoles and even PC.
Nvidia actually worked with Epic Games so it can run their next gen game creator the Unreal Engine 4 which is what being used on the xbox and PS4 today the tech demo they showed was just astounding then nvidia said it themselves, they did not think Mobile will be at the place it is at until a few years into the future.
The challenge right now is not the hardware it is the general gaming community not taking mobile seriously, both companies and consumers alike. Well, I look forward to having triple A games in my pocket ready for play no matter how long I will have to wait

More info on Nvidia's Tegra K1
Tegra K1's full tech demo with commentary

Steambox: PC and consoles came together and had a baby

So it has been quite awhile waiting for the steambox to come into the picture and it has been worth the wait they have officially unveiled the steambox (13 to be exact) starting from 500$
The web has been set on fire this pass week with steambox being the source and I don't blame them this truly something to be excited some people are completely against the idea of steam machines but they just don't get the market I would love to play my PC games in my living room on my TV like my consoles and if they can sell a steambox for the price of a Xbox I would choose it over the Xbox

So there are quite a few steamboxes mid to high-end that have appeared at CES the most notable being iBuyPower giving you a very affordable mid box that can easily keep with next gen for at least 2 or 3 years but I was really surprise is how customizable the models were though I will be getting a iBuyPower and upgrading separately

But the real market for this box was to bring PC to console gamers and I think it will truly accomplish that especially with the new steam controllers they imitate mouse and keyboard even though it's not perfect it get the job done and looks pretty fun to play with

Check out some other stuff
Most builds with their specs and prices Kotaku
Some more info on both CES and Steambox IGN PC Gamer

Will you be getting a steambox or do you think you don't need one? tell me all about it in the comment section below I will definitely respond to any questions you can ask I spent a lot of time on this one so I think I know most things

Destiny : A Wide Open Living World

I was surfing YouTube looking at some gameplay videos and I was brought to a old E3 Demo of Destiny a new next-gen shooter from the ones who made Halo and I took that with a grain of salt because I never actually Halo because I only got into shooters recently
So after watching IGN Coverage of the demo I was excited i'm a really big fan of MMOs and it sounds like the next-generation of consoles are going to be moving into that market, this might just be the deciding factor of me getting a next gen console at all

One of the public events

It showed a lot of different types of classes and weapons and I felt a wee bit nostalgia it looked a lot like Planetside 2 which I also recently started playing (I might do some articles on it when i'm done being a total Planetside noob 24/7 I only got one kill which was a freaking accident) we also saw a small machine by the name of Ghost which seemed similar to the little machine in Killzone:Shadowfall no one else really paid it much heed but it seemed like a nice little edition to me the fight scene was fast-paced and adrenaline fueled definitely the kind of fights I want in the IGN video they stated something I didn't really focus on and that their will be several different kinds of magic attacks which will be used in conjunction with guns adding some more aspects and more depth to the fire fights
The thing that ended the demo was what really sold me and that was a public event where all the players in the area chose to fight against this one opponent and get some good loot for it I really enjoy events like this in MMOs especially when it's done right and this is a prime example of that
I regret not putting this in my 2014 anticipated games but be sure to watch out for this one it's definitely going to keep me busy for awhile atleast

Most Anticipated Games Of 2014

Happy New Year's everyone! To welcome 2014 I wanted to say some of the games i'm really waiting for so in no particular order
Infamous Second Son 
I didn't get a PS3 this generation I had a a Xbox instead so I missed out on a lot of exclusives one of those being the Infamous series so i'm looking forward to see what this highly acclaimed series got

Kingdom Hearts 3   
A lot of you main stream shooter fans probably just went like HUH but this game is the wet dream of almost all RPG fans the long-awaited direct sequel of the strange crossover of Final Fantasy and Disney

took the world by surprise back in the early 2000s it has been a long 7 years since KH2 we are ready to pick our old keyblades back up again


                                                                              Dying Light
This sucker is released on the same day as infamous and three days before my birthday! (I know what my present will be) zombies games are becoming more and more popular and this one is definitely going to show what lays ahead for the genre in the next generation (Shut up dead rising you weren't even 1080p) you should definitely go check out some gameplay videos over on YouTube you will know what i'm talking about
   

  Titanfall
This is definitely my least most anticipated game of 2014 (yolo) only because i'm not really into mechs never have and probably never will be but the few gameplay moments I've seen peaks my curiosity but not my attention it wont be on ps4 I might not be able to play it if I don't get my gaming PC together soon

Watch Dogs
Thank god for it not being released yet it gives me times to get a ps4 (or pc) to play this guy at his best the last game I played this year was GTA 5 after finishing and loving it I find myself wondering, "With all the games attention to details I wonder just how amazing it would be on next gen" and this is the answer





We only know one thing for sure that is that 2014 is definitely going to be a interesting year with Next Gen, New 4k resolution,Steamboxes, And more apocalypse theories (Yes you know their coming)